April 28, 2009

The assasination of J. G. Ballard

My tribute to Ballard, written after reading one middlebrow hack appropriation too many, is now up at the ever-excellent Ballardian.

I found myself sharing Sukdehv Sandhu's bemusement: "It is hard ... not to raise an eyebrow at the column inches and airtime given over to Ballard's passing. Frankly, it seems hypocritical. His values were far removed from those of the cultural gatekeepers that have posthumously embraced him: he was a natural non-conformist whose work is anti-humanist, perverse, violent."

Far better, for Ballard still to be condemned as evil than that he is smugly assimilated into Britlit.